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Spring Cakes in Bloom

Spring party season is the perfect excuse to whip up one, or more, of these sweet treats.

Spring is the season when flowers bud, and these cake recipes capture the sweetness of the new season. These spring cake recipes feature the fresh flavors of strawberries, lemons, and Key limes. For truly Southern takes on spring, enjoy the recipe for our Sweet-Tea-and-Lemonade Cake, try the Strawberry-Lemonade Layer Cake, or taste our 35th Anniversary Hummingbird Cake. Few aromas say spring quite like honeysuckle, and you can find it here too, in a recipe that pairs it with green tea. If you prefer a bite-size spring cake, bake the Heavenly Angel Food Cake, or slice into the Lemon-Yogurt Crumb Cake. Let your love for your favorite cakes bloom, and let these delicious spring cake recipes blossom.

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Strawberry Dream Cake

You'll fall in love with this too-good-to-be-true strawberry cake. Fluffy whipped frosting made with marscapone cheese, sugar, whipping cream, and vanilla and almond extracts is the perfect finishing touch. We love the presentation of cake slices with upright strawberries between the layers. When it comes down to the details, this sweet confection takes the cake.

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Key Lime Icebox Cake

Layers of tangy-sweet Key lime custard and graham crackers stack up to make one quick and easy layer cake with just enough pucker to take the heat off summer. Add the lime juice once you've fully cooked the custard to let the cornstarch thicken the mixture properly.

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Lemon-Lime Pound Cake

This recipe is based on a classic Southern favorite called 7UP Pound Cake, which was created in the 1950s when the soda company suggested using its soft drink instead of other liquid in pound cake recipes. The result: one of the best, and simplest, cakes you'll ever make.

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Strawberries and Cream Cake

We used 6 (8-inch) disposable aluminum foil cake pans, so we could fill all the pans at once. This way, if you bake the layers in batches, the second batch is ready to go in the oven as soon as the first is done.

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The Lemon Cheese Layer Cake

Expecting a twist on cheesecake? You’re in for an even sweeter surprise. These layers are filled with a buttery rich lemon curd instead. Recipes dating back to the early 1800s called for acidulating cream with lemon juice, then separating the curds and whey. Over the years, the original recipe for lemon cheese evolved into one using butter and eggs. By the 1940s almost every good cook south of the Mason-Dixon Line had a recipe for lemon cheese layer cake in her repertoire. And if you’ve ever lived anywhere near Hartford in southeast Alabama you know of the local ladies still famous for their 14-layer lemon cheese cakes. Numerous versions of this nostalgic classic pay homage to Robert E. Lee, who allegedly fancied sponge cakes filled with a sugary mix of finely grated lemons and oranges. Until now, a lemon cheese riff on Robert E. Lee Cake from the Southern Living 1990 Five-Star Recipe Collection used to be our favorite. But this one trumps them all.

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Triple-Chocolate Buttermilk Pound Cake

We took the traditional pound cake recipe and raised it a stunning, triple-chocolate twist. This cake means business. A duo of glazes—one creamy chocolate, the other subtle buttermilk—comes together atop this dreamy confection. It’s indulgent and, we admit, so much fun to eat and serve. Chocolate enthusiasts will be over the moon for this recipe, but it has enough unexpected flavor—thanks to the addition of the buttermilk glaze—that you’ll also win over the harder-to-please dessert eaters at the table. Warning: You—and they—won’t be able to resist a second slice. Go for it. We won’t tell.